Scott, in his well advised admonitory proclamation,
well said, that the voice under which both he and
they acted is imperative, and that by heeding it, it
is hoped that “they will spare him the horror
of witnessing the destruction of the Cherokees.”
The great Muskogee family had been broken up, by the
act of Georgia, before. The Seminoles, who belong
to that family, broke out themselves in a foolish
hostility very late in 1835, and have kept up a perfectly
senseless warfare, in the shelter of hummocks and quagmires
since. The Choctaws and Chickasaws, with a wise
forecast, had forseen their position, and the utter
impossibility of setting up independent governments
in the boundaries of the States. It is now evident
to all, that the salvation of these interesting relics
of Oriental races lies in colonization west.
Their teachers, the last to see the truth, have fully
assented to it. Public sentiment has settled on
that ground; sound policy dictates it; and the most
enlarged philanthropy for the Indian race perceives
its best hopes in the measure.

CHAPTER LXVI.

Sentiments of loyalty—­Northern Antiquarian
Society—­Indian statistics—­Rhode
Island Historical Society—­Gen. Macomb—­Lines
in the Odjibwa language by a mother on placing her
children at school—­Mehemet Ali—­Mrs.
Jameson’s opinion on publishers and publishing—­Her
opinion of my Indian legends—­False report
of a new Indian language—­Indian compound
words—­Delafield’s Antiquities—­American
Fur Company—­State of Indian disturbances
in Texas and Florida—­Causes of the failure
of the war in Florida, by an officer—­Death
of an Indian chief—­Mr. Bancroft’s
opinion on the Dighton Rock inscription—­Skroellings
not in New England—­Mr. Gallatin’s
opinion on points of Esquimaux language, connected
with our knowledge of our archaeology.

1839. Jan. 1st. I called, amid the throng,
on the President. His manners were bland and
conciliatory. These visits, on set days, are not
without the sentiment of strong personality in many
of the visitors, but what gives them their most significant
character is the general loyalty they evince to the
constitution, and government, and supreme law of the
land. The President is regarded, for the time,
as the embodiment of this sentiment, and the tacit
fealty paid to him, as the supreme law officer, is
far more elevating to the self-balanced and independent
mind than if he were a monarch ad libitum,
and not for four years merely.

2d. I received a notice of my election
as a member of the Royal Northern Antiquarian Society
of Copenhagen, of which fact I had been previously
notified by that Society. This Society shows us
how the art of engraving may be brought in as an auxiliary
to antiquarian letters; but it certainly undervalues
American sagacity if it conjectures that such researches
and speculations as those of Mr. Magnusen, on the
Dighton Rock, and what it is fashionable now-a-days
to call the NEWPORT RUIN, can satisfy the purposes
of a sound investigation of the Anti-Columbian period
of American history.